Games of the Year

It's just about the end of the year, which is the time for stand-out of the year posts, and you're not going to believe this, but I have some opinions. I always liked end of the year wrap-ups because they give you a chance to reflect on what was good in the last twelve months of your life, and it's also interesting to try to give individual entities some kind of historical context, which I happen to think is important. (Just wait until I unveil which years were the best in gaming and why. There are fascinating peaks and valleys. But that's another column.)

Offsetting my affection for this kind of reflection is my disdain for list columns. I feel that they can be a cop-out for writers in lieu of writing anything of substance. It's like they're saying "I don't have anything important to say and don't have any good ideas this week; lets put something in numerical order to create false controversy and discussion, all while bringing literally nothing new to the table!" I'm not saying all lists are inherently bad, but there's a reason "The Best Damn Sports Show Period" devolved into an endless series of "50 Best Damn (sports moment)" shows and inevitably, into obscurity. There simply wasn't a lot of creative firepower behind that show. They require no effort; slap a a string of highlights together, record a voice over explaining each clip, put a commercial between #2 and #1 for dramatic effect, and you're done.

That's why I will try to abstain from mindless lists. My alternative, which I feel captures the best of both worlds, is compiling a series of mini-reviews which are runners-up in no particular order followed by my choice for the coveted title of Game of the Year. This is the first such article of several I'll write before the end of the year, and of course, it's about videogames.


Starcraft II
There is one common above-average element among all games that stand out for me: story. I can shoot virtual people all day and forget the entire experience a week later. But if you deliver a compelling story, I'll never forget it. Such was the case for Starcraft II, which featured lavish production values, deep and varied gameplay, incredibly balanced and fine-tuned multiplayer, and of course, an incredible story. I'm not generally a huge fan of the Real Time Strategy (RTS) genre, which involves amassing resources to create a small army to use tactically against an enemy. However somehow Starcraft has always been an exception for me, and the story is the reason. It's about love lost, redemption, betrayal, loyalty, and the complex interactions of a variety of fascinating characters with different motivations, loyalties, and interests. I also always love it when a character's actions speak louder than their words as in the case of the protagonist Jim Raynor. Raynor is often the voice of reason in conversations with his compatriots, a safe middle ground for the political extremes of the characters around him. But then you step back and realize he's following a self-destructive pipe-dream of a plan to save a woman who he thought he might have had feelings for at one point, and now that she's gone it's all he can seem to think about. The understated verbal performance serves to amplify the incredible lengths he goes to in order to accomplish something he won't even admit to wanting. It's just fascinating, wonderful storytelling that, even in the absence of the excellent gameplay Starcraft II provides, would land it on this list.

Red Dead Redemption
Here is a short list of things I've done in this game: I rode a train into town at the beginning of the game as a mysterious stranger with a troubled past; lassoed, broke, and then rode a stallion; drove a horse-drawn wagon away from some varmints in a high speed chase; played poker, dice, and horseshoes; followed a treasure map to gold; participated in a quick-draw duel; collected bounties for wanted criminals (by lasso and hogtie); shot the rope of a public hanging to save the victim just as the horse he was sitting on was about to run away; saved horses from a burning barn before riding the last one out over piles of burning rubble; got into a fistfight at a saloon after walking through tiny chest high double-doors; and met some despicable characters all while saying western sounding things. Needless to say, this game is everything you'd want a western videogame to be, and that's all I'll say until my full review when I finish the game.

Honorable Mentions: Games I Didn't Play
Well this is awkward. I didn't get a chance to play every game worthy of consideration for game of the year, but I'm also well enough aware of which are relevant on the gaming landscape. Super Mario Galaxy 2 is a platformer I missed this year, but my understanding is that it's even better than the first SMG game, which was superb, varied, and challenging yet accessable in its own right. Kirby's Epic Yarn will charm the pants off you, so if you play it you might want to wear two pair. Of course, Rock Band 3 remains true to the form of excellent Harmonix rhythm games and was called by some "the greatest rhythm game ever made," and by me "a game I really want to play." Alan Wake is a mystery about a writer that supposedly pushes storytelling in gameplay forward, but since it's on the Xbox 360, it might as well be invisible to me. Metal Gear Solid: Peacewalker and Valkyria Chronicles II are also excellent, but again, not having a PSP has prevented me from enjoying these sequels to PS3 games I know, love, and own. Finally, Epic Mickey was something of a disappointment, but perhaps hopes were too high that The Face of Disney could ever be portrayed in an edgy or interesting way, which is what this game had the potential to do.

Honorable Mentions: Games I Did Play
God of War 3 was par for the course in the series of GoW games: namely, over-the-top violence and gore punctuated by clearing out rooms of enemies with the same weapon combo. There isn't much to be said that hasn't already been said about this game, but it didn't really stick with me despite very good gameplay and excellent graphics. Before it was released, Heavy Rain was touted as another leap forward for narrative in videogames, with unprecedented facial animations and characterizations. I think I'll save this one for a full review later (I know, I should have started this blog months ago, sue me), but the bottom line is that there were too many issues with this game for me to truly accept that description of it. Final Fantasy 13 was not as good as FF12, but still was very pretty to look at and featured an interesting combat system that carried me through to the end of the game, even if I found the ending of the story so incomprehensible and stupid that it ended up leaving a bad taste in my metaphorical mouth.

And the Game of the Year is:
Mass Effect 2! I know, you're thinking "Wow, he's really choosing a sci-fi space opera? That's a stretch!" I know, but it's true. In all seriousness, I am a sucker for science fiction which will show through in my preferences from now until forever, but ME2 really puts a lot of excellent writing into this epic about what is admittedly, on the surface, a fairly rote sci-fi story. Shepard (you) has to save humanity from annihilation at the hands of a race of super-advanced ancient sentient machines. That's the short version though, and while the plot itself stays out of its own way and manages to be pretty compelling, it's the characters that carry this game, just like the original Mass Effect. As it turns out, the way Shepard sets out to accomplish this task is to recruit a rag-tag band of misfits, all of whom bring something unique to the table needed for the final mission. Okay, that sounded corny too, but the twist that's really gripping is that the characters don't automatically trust you just because you're the legendary Commander Shepard, officer of the Alliance Marines and the first ever human Citadel Council Spectre. If you want their trust, you have to go on optional missions for each character that accomplish several goals: they help you to learn more about the character the mission is based on, wrap up a variety of loose ends that might otherwise distract the character from the primary mission, and develop the relationship between Shepard and the character in a way that's unique to each character. That would all be well and good, but the kicker that really makes these side missions matter is that each character's performance in the final mission is based on the level of trust and loyalty they have for you. This mission is built up through the whole game as a suicide mission that is probably impossible and will almost certainly be deadly for all party members, and if you don't handle your party in the optimum possible way, people will die. The final mission is an excellent culmination of events, relationships, and character arcs which leaves a dramatic impact regardless of how well it turns out for your assembled crew. Oh, and lets not forget, it's a fun game too.